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Scientific Misconducts
Fabrication & Falsification of
Data, Selective reporting,
Salami Publishing, Redundant
Publishing, Duplicate
publishing, etc.,
Case studies
 Scientific
misconduct
• Scientific misconduct and fraud are prevailing problems
in science and it threatens to undermine integrity,
credibility, and objectivity in genuine research.

 It also risks undermining trust, among researchers

and the general public.

 It becomes important to consider the possible means of

countering fraud and misconduct in the research.
 Scientific misconduct has been defined by the
United States Department of Health and
Human Services (USDHHS, 1999) as:

 Fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, or other

practices that seriously deviate from those
that are commonly accepted practices within
the scientific community for proposing,
conducting, or reporting research.

 It does not include honest error or honest

differences in interpretations or judgments of data.
 Unethical
Falsification Publishing
Practices
Original
Required
readings
45
readings
65
35
38
/Misconduct
21 63
82 75

Fabrication Participants

50
Double / Multiple
Authorship Citation Boosting Submission

Gift Selective Reporting Redundant Publication

Guest Ghost Copyright Infringement Salami Slicing

 FALSIFICATION
Falsification is the changing or omission of research
results/data to support claims, hypotheses, other data,
etc. Falsification can include the manipulation of
research instrumentation, materials, or processes.
Manipulation of images or representations in a manner
that distorts the data or “reads too much between the
lines” can also be considered falsification.
 FABRICATION
 Fabrication is the construction and/or addition of data,
observations, or characterizations that never occurred in
the gathering of data or running of experiments.

 Fabrication can occur when “filling out” the rest of

experiment runs.

 Claims about results need to be made on complete

datasets as normally assumed, where claims made
based on incomplete or assumed results are a form of
fabrication.
 Plagiaris
Plagiarism is the use msomeone
of else’s
work without attribution, passing it off as
one’s own. Text, fi gures, tables, and
even ideas can be plagiarized. When a
whole entity (e.g., an entire article, a f
igure, a table, or a dataset) is
republished without attribution or
permission, there may be a copyright
violation as well as ethical misconduct.
 Acts considered as plagiarism
• Turning in someone else's work as your own

• Copying words or ideas from someone else without giving credit

• Failing to put a quotation in quotation marks

• Giving incorrect information about the source of a quotation

• Changing words but copying the sentence structure of a source without

giving credit

• Copying so many words or ideas from a source that it makes up the

majority of your work, whether you give credit or not
 Types of Plagiarism
1. Clone Submitting another’s work, word-for-word, as one’s own

Contains significant portions of text from a single source

2. CTRL-C
without alterations
3. Find - Changing key words and phrases but retaining the essential
Replace content of the source

4. Remix Paraphrases from multiple sources, made to fit together

5. Recycle Borrows generously from the writer’s previous work without citation

Combines perfectly cited sources with copied passages

6. Hybrid
without citation

7. Mashup Mixes copied material from multiple sources

Includes citations to non-existent or inaccurate information

404 Error
about sources
Includes proper citation to sources but the paper contains almost
9. Aggregator
no original work
Includes proper citation, but relies too closely on the text’s
10. Re-tweet
original wording and/or structure
 Common Excuses for Plagiarism
• The Misunderstanding: “I didn’t think that I was doing anything wrong.”

• The Lapse of Judgment: “I know I made a mistake, but it’s not going to
happen again.”

• The Big Escape: “vast amount of resources and publications on the web, copying a
little here and there will most likely go undetected”

• The Force of Nature: “blame external factors on their wrong doing”

• The Honest Mistake

 Common Question on Plagiarism
• Plagiarism really is a crime ?
• Am I Plagiarizing if I Cite a Plagiarized Source?
– Follow CRAAP Model before selecting source to refer
• Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy, Purpose

• Is it really plagiarism if I don't cite correctly?

• Plagiarism's Impact on Career ?
• Can other see my work which I uploaded to similarity
detecting software / databases?

• Are free plagiarism tools reports are complete

Use the CRAAP Test to
evaluate your sources
Global Plagiarism Map
Plagiarism: Some Cases
SCI Papers Retraction
Plagiarism: Some
Cases
 Publisher Example (Springer)
Plagiarism Offense Action Taken
Minor A warning is given to the authors and a request to
Short sections of another article are plagiarized change the text and properly cite the original article
without any significant data or idea taken from the is made.
other paper
Intermediate The submitted article is rejected a
A significant portion of a paper (more than two n d a
sentences but less than 20% of the content) is resubmission is not permitted.
plagiarized (including plagiarism of one’s own
previously published work) without proper citation
to the original paper.

Severe The paper is rejected and the authors are forbidden

A si g n i f i can t p o r t i o n o f a p a p e r ( > 2 to submit further articles to the journal of a period
0 % ) i s plagiarized that involves reproducing of three years.
original results or ideas presented in another
publication. Multiple (repeated) instances of
plagiarism at the intermediate level may also
constitute a severe infraction.
•
Plagiarism tools
Plagiarism
• Plagtracker
• Copyscape
• Duplichecker
• Plagius
• Ephorus
• Plagiarism Sniffer
• NewJester
• PlagScan
• ORKUNDU
• Turnitin
• iThenticate
• PlagiarismDetection.
org
• Academic Plagiarism
• The Plagiarism
Checker

Many More !!!!

 IMAGE DUPLICATION
 Unlike plagiarism in papers published in scientific journals, image
duplication in the same paper or in different papers and image
manipulation have hardly received any attention.

 But the high-profile retraction in 2006 of South Korean stem cell

researcher Hwang Woo Suk’s paper published in 2005 in Science
turned the spotlight on image manipulation. Two photographs in the
same figure in the paper were found to be partial duplication.
 Unlike in the case of plagiarism where there are software available
to detect it and almost all journals routinely use them, no such
software or system is available for detecting image duplication
and manipulation

How do we detect image duplication???

 PubPee
pubpeer.com, pubpeer.org and pubpeer.net

r
The PubPeer Foundation is a California-
registered public-benefit corporation with
501(c)(3) nonprofit status in the United
States. The overarching goal of the
Foundation is to improve the quality of
scientific research by enabling innovative
approaches for community interaction.
 PUBPEER REPORTS
Dr. Chitra Mandal, a SERB
Distinguished Fellow at the CSIR-Indian
Institute of Chemical Biology, Kolkata,
has 19 papers listed on Pubpeer for
image manipulation and/or
duplication. She is the corresponding
author in 17 papers. All the
problematic images were double-
checked by an iCnhdietrpaeMndanednatl
eoxf pCeSrIt.R-Indian
Institute of Chemical Biology
admits to ‘unintentional mistakes’;
Nine more papers listed on
Pubpeer
 Embezzlement of
ideas
 Claiming an idea to be one’s own while it
was obtained from privileged access
while reviewing manuscripts, grant
proposals or through participation in
lectures and personal discussions and
earlier publications (but not citing them).

 This also includes acts wherein ideas

of others are presented as one’s own
through slight changes of words,
phrases and illustrations.
MULTIPLE/DUPLICATE SUBMISSION

Courtesy:
Assigning Authorship
GROWING NUMBER OF AUTHORS PER PAPER
 Large authors lists
have attracted some
criticism

• Recent years some

journals insist that
each author`s role be
described and that
each author is
responsible for the
validity of the whole
work.
Ghost Authorship
Coercion Authorship
Mutual Support Authorship
 Guest Authorship
Guest authorship refers to senior authors who are
included because of their respect or influence in the hope
that this will increase the likelihood of publication and/or
impact of the paper once published.

 Often, researchers use guest authorship

in lieu of acquiring grants, funds, etc.,
 Gift Authorship
 Gift authorship is defined as co-
authorship awarded to a person who
has not contributed significantly to the
study. ...

 Junior researchers often feel

pressured to accept or assign
authorship to their senior co-
workers who have substantial
powers over their future career.
 HYPER AUTHORSHIP
 A physics paper with 5,154 authors has — as far as anyone knows
— broken the record for the largest number of contributors to a
single research article

 Only the first nine pages in

the 33- page article,
published in Physical Review
Letters, describe the research
itself — including references.
 The other 24 pages list the Large Hadron Collider at
authors and their institutions. CERN
Paper with highest number of
Authors
 AUTHORSHIP

Publication related to the thesis or

dissertation

- Should be regarded as the student`s

work
- Members associated should be
listed as secondary authors

Courtesy: Springer
Authorship
Responsibilities
Authorship
Responsibilities
 Whistleblowers in Science
• Whistleblowers in science have nothing to do with whistles, the term was coined
because a whistleblowing would get someone’s attention and “whistleblowers” also
get someon
• Unfortunately it would seem that science is not above reproach when it
comes to cover ups and scandals.
• A whistleblower is a person that turns to the appropriate authority to
report scientific misconduct.
• There are certain laws in place to protect a whistleblower from retaliation.
Retaliation can come in several different forms when someone steps up and
tries to report misconduct:
• Civil lawsuits
• Being fired
• Being black listed
 History of Scientific
 misconduct
Scientific misconduct has occurred throughout the history of science.

 Over the past few decades, there has been found an apparent outbreak
in scientists who behaving very badly.

 One such case is that of Dutch social psychologist Diederik Stapel (1990),
who fabricated more than 50 influential studies, usually “finding” things
that academic liberals wanted to believe, including that dirty
environments encouraged racism, that eating meat made people selfish,
and that power had a negative effect on morality of the people.

 Research misconduct does not include honest errors or differences of

opinion.
 Scientific misconduct is not a recent phenomenon simply tied
to some decline of morality or increased competition for tenure
and research funds. Accusations of scientific misconduct,
sometimes well supported, pepper the history of science, from
the Greek natural philosophers onward.

 The first formal discussion of scientific misconduct is Charles

Babbage’s Reflections on the Decline of Science in England,
and on Some of Its Causes. Babbage held Newton’s chair at
Cambridge and made major contributions to the development
of computers (“difference machines,” “analytical engines”) and
to astronomy, mathematics, and many other fields. He
distinguished “several species of impositions that have been
practiced in science hoaxing, forging, trimming and cooking.”
 Scientists guilty of misconduct have been found in many
fields and at different levels in the universities and research
institutions.

 Their social and educational backgrounds vary. They appear

to be no systematic empirical studies of the characteristics
of perpetrators of scientific misconduct and no good evidence
for any common characteristics.
 Guidelines suggested by National Academy of Science
(2012) for the development of institutional growth and to
overcome scientific misconduct cover
The Academy
Evolution: The National Academy of Sciences, India
(initially called “The Academy of Sciences of United
Provinces of Agra and Oudh”) was founded in the year
1930, with the objectives to provide a national forum for
the publication of research work carried out by Indian
scientists and to provide opportunities for exchange of
views among them.
 Poor Practices vs.
 Errors in the scientific Misconduct
literature, and the poor reproducibility of
research findings, may likely occur for three reasons.
 Firstly, a small number of errors are just due to chance alone. If 25
laboratories all perform the same experiment, the lab with
anomalous positive result might publish their fi ndings, whereas
the 24 other labs that did not make this observation would not
even submit their findings.
 Secondly, a much greater source of errors is those that arise
from sloppy research, with poor controls, lack of blinding,
reagents that have not been validated, etc. These are the
“fl ags” that Begley (2013) refers to in his commentary.
 Lastly, there are the errors that arise from deliberate falsification of
fabrication of data. These, together with plagiarism, are usually
used to define “research misconduct,” and the critical element is
intent, i.e., that it was done in order to deceive.
 All research misconduct shares the common features being both
deliberate and dishonest, the seriousness varies enormously, from
the very minor, such as deliberately failing to cite competitors, to the
extremely serious, such as falsifying data that endangers the lives of
human research subjects.

 In 2010, the second World Conference on Research Integrity

produced the Singapore Statement on integrity and misconduct.

 It provides a concise description of how researchers should behave,

based on principles of honesty, accountability, fairness, and good
stewardship. Among 14 listed responsibilities, it cites the importance
of reporting findings fully, maintaining records, including as author all
those and only those that meet the criteria applicable to the research
field, giving credit to those who have contributed but are not authors,
and declaring conflicts of interest. A
 Singapore Statement
Principles on integrity and
 Honesty in all aspects of
 Accountability
research
misconduct
in the conduct of research
 Professional courtesy and fairness in working with others
 Good stewardship of research on behalf of others
Responsibilities
1. Integrity: Researchers should take responsibility for the
trustworthiness of their research.
2. Adherence to Regulations: Researchers should be aware of and
adhere to regulations and policies related to research.
3. Research Methods: Researchers should employ appropriate
research methods, base conclusions on critical analysis of
the evidence, and report findings and interpretations fully
and objectively.
Doi:10.1080/08989621.2011.557296
 Singapore Statement
on integrity and
misconduct
4. Research Records: Researchers should keep clear, accurate records of
all research in ways that will allow verification and replication of their
work by others. 5. Research Findings: Researchers should share data and
findings openly and promptly, as soon as they have had an opportunity
to establish priority and ownership claims.
6. Authorship: Researchers should take responsibility for their
contributions to all publications, funding applications, reports, and
other representations of their research. Lists of authors should include
all those and only those who meet applicable authorship criteria.
7. Publication Acknowledgment: Researchers should acknowledge in
publications the names and roles of those who made significant
contributions to the research, including writers, funders, sponsors, and
others, but do not meet authorship criteria.
 Singapore Statement
on integrity and
8.Peer Review: Researchers should provide fair, prompt, and rigorous
misconduct
evaluations and respect confidentiality when reviewing others’ work.
9.Conflict of Interest: Researchers should disclose financial and other
conflicts of interest that could compromise the trustworthiness of
their work in research proposals, publications, and public
communications as well as in all review activities.
10.Public Communication: Researchers should limit professional
comments to their recognized expertise when engaged in public
discussions about the application and importance of research findings
and clearly distinguish professional comments from opinions based on
personal views.
11.Reporting Irresponsible Research Practices: Researchers should
report to the appropriate authorities any suspected research
misconduct, including fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism, and other
irresponsible research practices that undermine the trustworthiness of
 Singapore Statement
on integrity and
12.Responding to Irresponsible Research Practices: Research
misconduct
institutions, as well as journals, professional organizations, and agencies
that have commitments to research, should have procedures for
responding to allegations of misconduct and other irresponsible research
practices and for protecting those who report such behavior in good faith.
When misconduct or other irresponsible research practice is confirmed,
appropriate actions should be taken promptly, including correcting the
research record.
13.Research Environments: Research institutions should create
and sustain environments that encourage integrity through
education, clear policies, and reasonable standards for
advancement, while fostering work environments that support
research integrity.
14.Societal Considerations: Researchers and research institutions
should recognize that they have an ethical obligation to weigh societal
 Statement of Cornfield
 The main motivations for misconduct (2012)
are, at their base, either financial or
reputational.
 As fewer and fewer researchers are in tenured positions, and more and more
rely on competitive grants to fund both their salaries and their laboratory costs,
scientists know that if they don’t keep publishing, their careers will be at an end.
 This is compounded when funding is based on non-objective measures, or on
simplified metrics such as volume of publications, rather than their quality.
 Similarly, students and postdoctoral researchers know that if their experiments
fail, they won’t get publications, and the next career step will be jeopardized.
 Foreign students and post-docs know that a successful experiment published in a
prominent journal can lead to residency and citizenship, and perhaps a tenure-track
position, whereas experiments that fail to produce the hoped-for result will mean
they have to return to their home country.
 Thus, the temptation to dishonestly generate experimental results is ultimately
financial, but it is rarely to gain riches, more frequently to just keep a job
 Fabrication/
 Falsification
It may be very important to realize that there is a wide spectrum
of severity of research misconduct.
 On lesser level/scale are practices such as intentionally failing to
cite the work of competitors, and citing our own work more
frequently than necessary.
 Similarly, cropping out cross-reactive bands in western blots, or
changing the white threshold of an image to clean up the
background must not be done, because it alters the original data,
but it is treated as a mild sin in academics and research.
 On the other end of the scale is generation of data by just making
up numbers, or generating false images by duplicating/altering/
relabeling other one’s fabricated literature/research/findings.
 While determining the severity of the misconduct, or
whether it is misconduct at all, it is important to determine the
degree of intent, although this is not always easy for all.
 Most of the figures in the research papers are comprised of
many similar- looking parts, whether they might be
photomicrographs, gels and blots, flow cytometry plots, or traces
from a patch-clamp amplifier.
 It can therefore possible for someone to inadvertently grab the
same image file twice, leading to a duplicated and wrongly labeled
part of a figure.
 On the other hand, if many duplications are found in the
figures in a particular literature/paper, and they also involve
rotations, differential cropping, or mirror images, and if similar
anomalies are also apparent in other works by the same
 With lots of pressures to publish the research/findings, and the
availability of image processing software, the temptation to cut
corners and artificially generate the desired result has never been
greater work.
 Thousands of examples can be found in records on the
postpublication peer review site PubPeer (https://pubpeer.com/).
 They don’t provide proof of intent or reveal which of the authors
on multi- author papers bears responsibility.
 For this activity, action is required to be taken either by the
authors them selves or through the e s tab lis h m e n t of an
inquiry by their institution/university/organization.
 For the last couple of years or so, most of the research
journals have explicitly stated in their guidelines to authors
what kinds of image manipulation are acceptable, and which are
 Salami Publication
Salami publication or segmented publication is a distinct form of
redundant publication which is usually characterized by similarity of
hypothesis, methodology or results but not text similarity

 Salami-slicing is a less severe

offense, expressing undefined grey-
zones of redundancy
 Slicing not only skews the “scientific database” but it creates repetition that
wastes readers` time as well as the time of editors and reviewers, who must
handle each paper separately.

 It increases the quantity of scientific literature instead of quality & It leads to

self-plagiarism

 It unfairly inflates the author`s citation record.

 There is no software application or algorithm for detection of salami

publication

 Identifying this type of publication misconduct is complex as they do not

include text plagiarism
 Stop Salami
Publication
Why do authors do it?

• To increase their publication count

• To get more recognition
• To achieve faster career
progression
• To receive more
funding

The “Slicing” of research that would form one meaningful paper into several
different papers is called “Salami Publication” or “Salami Slicing”
 Stealing
Credit
 Authorship gives benefits, but also carries responsibilities.
 Like other forms of misbehavior, authorship issues can range from
the trivial to the serious, with plagiarism—the taking of another’s
words or ideas without attribution being classified as “research
misconduct,” along with fabrication and falsification.
 The reason authorship is so important is because it is the
currency that determines not only honors such as prizes and
membership of academies, but also the grants and fellowships that
pay the researcher’s salary.
 In life science publications from academic institutions, the first author
is usually the student or post-doc who did most of the hands-on
experimental work. The last author is typically the laboratory head.
Usually, authors in between will be closer to the first position if they
have contributed experimental data, and closer to the last position if
they have provided analysis and writing.
 Two of the u n e th ic al ways in
which authorship is corrupted
are known as “Ghost” and
“Honorary” authorship.
 Ghost authorship is when someone
who would fulfill the usual
requirements to be listed as an
author and has provided
substantial intellectual input to a
paper—is not named among the
authors.
 Pharmaceutical companies have
used ghost authorship as a way of
hiding their role in a publication.
 Honorary authorship is when an author is listed
without having fulfilled the usual requirements to
justify their inclusion, i.e., where they have not made
a substantial intellectual contribution to a paper.
 Sometimes when drug companies write papers,
they offer honorary authorships to “opinion
leaders” so in order to influence clinicians.
 Honorary inclusion as an author can also be
claimed by department or laboratory heads for work
that they have not produced themselves, or it can
be off ered to friends or collaborators to curry favor.
 The honorary inclusion of a famous person or someone
known to the journal’s editors can increase the chances
that a paper is sent out for review.

 Honorary authorship on one paper can be offered by

a group leader in exchange for honorary inclusion as an
author on another group’s paper.
 Institutional
Responses to
 Primary responsibility for the conduct of an inquiry through a valid
Scientific Misconduct
committee and an investigation of an allegation of scientific
misconduct lies with the institution in which the research is being
conducted.
 All individuals involved in research funded by the
government/authority are subject to face inquiry and
investigation on the basis of an allegation of scientific
misconduct.
 This includes students, residents, doctoral/postdoctoral fellows,
staff, faculty, and professional staff, as well as foreign and national
institutions, regardless of where they are physically located.
 The inquiry is a preliminary investigation conducted to
determine whether the allegation has sufficient substance to
warrant a full investigation.
The individual should also be informed of his/her right to challenge the
appointment of a committee member or expert on the basis of bias or conflict of
interest, the right to be assisted by counsel and to present evidence to the
committee, and the right to comment on the inquiry report.

The notice should also contain a reminder of the respondent’s obligations,

including the obligation to maintain the confidentiality of the proceedings.
During the inquiry, each respondent, complainant, and witness should have an
opportunity to be interviewed.

If the respondent admits that he or she committed scientific misconduct,

he or she should be asked to sign a written statement. This provides a sufficient
basis to initiate the investigation which must be informed by the institution at any
stage of the inquiry or investigation if any of the following circumstances are
present by the Office of Research Integrity as described below:
 BASIS TO CARRY OUT
INVESTIGATION
 There is an immediate health hazard involved,
 There is an immediate need to protect federal funds or equipment,
 There is an immediate need to protect the interests of the person or
persons who made the allegations of scientific misconduct or the
individual or individuals who are the subject of the complaint,
 It is likely that the incident will be reported publicly,
 The allegation involves a sensitive public health issue,
 There is a reasonable indication of a criminal violation.
INSTITUTIONAL ACTIONS FOR
SCIENTIFIC MISCONDUCT
 The denial or revocation of tenure,
 The withdrawal of principal investigator status
 The issuance of a letter of reprimand,
 The review of the respondent’s applications, and/or the
requirement that the investigator withdraws the manuscript(s)
and correct the literature.
 Courts have specifically found that an individual does not
have a constitutionally protected right to continue to serve
as the principal investigator of a public funded grant
because institutions are the grantees of the awards.
Administrative Responses to Scientific
Misconduct
 Institutions conducting the research have the primary
responsibility for investigating allegations of scientific
misconduct.
 Consequently, the Office of Research Integrity’s (ORI)
responsibility generally consists of reviewing the institution’s
investigative report.
 Findings of the Office of Research Integrity can be
appealed to the Departmental Appeals Board (DAB).
 The Chair of the DAB will appoint a Research Integrity
Adjudication Panel, composed of administrative law judges,
DAB members, and scientists.
 The ORI is represented by the Research Integrity Branch of the
Office of the General Counsel in hearings before the DAB.
 As a principal investigator/administrator of an interview-based
study that seeks to examine individual’s perceptions of what
constitutes elder abuse and neglect.
 All interviews have been recorded. Participants are paid a small
stipend to thank them for their time, since the interviews are
quite lengthy.
 It has come to the attention through the grapevine that, rather
than utilizing the recruitment scheme that had been designed for
the study and approved by the IRB, the interviewers have been
interviewing their friends.
• What additional information, if any, do you need at this time?
• What courses of action are open to you as the principal
investigator?
• Which would you select and why?
 Misconduct in Regulated
Research
 Study-oriented inspections focus on misconduct of scientific
studies are important to conduct product evaluation. For
example, new drug/micro— biological applications and product
license applications.

 An investigator-oriented inspection may be initiated for any of

the following reasons:
•The investigator conducted an extraordinarily important
study that has particular significance with respect to product
approval.
•Representatives of the research sponsor have reported
difficulties in getting case reports from the investigator.
•Representatives of the research sponsor have reported some
concerns with regard to the investigator’s work.
• A participant in a study complained about protocol or human
subject’s violations.
• The investigator has participated in a large number of
studies or has done work outside his or her specialty area.
• Safety or effectiveness findings are inconsistent with those
of other investigators who have studied the same test article.
• The investigator has claimed too many subjects with a
specified disease relative to the location of the investigation.
• Laboratory results are outside of the range of expected
biological variation
 The procedures for study-oriented inspections and investigator-oriented
inspections are similar.
 The representative will then prepare a written report and will submit it to
headquarters for evaluation.
 After the report is evaluated, one of the three types of letters will be
issued to the investigator:
•The letter will state that there were no significant deviations noted. This
type of letter does not require that the clinical investigator responds.
•An informational letter will identify any deviations from regulations and
from good clinical practice. In some cases, a response will be required from
the clinical investigator. If this is expected, the letter will detail what must
be done and provide the name of a contact person should the investigator
have any questions.
•A warning letter will be issued, which identifies serious deviations from
the relevant regulations. This type of letter requires an immediate
response from the clinical investigator.
In certain cases, the investigator might enter into a consent agreement
in addition to utilizing the opportunity for an informal conference. In
such cases, the disqualification process will not continue. At this level
four types of misconduct have been noted from publication audits:

• the deliberate fabrication of results, known as dry

lobbing;
•the violation of regulations governing research,
such as a failure to obtain informed consent;
•the modification of data to enhance its
publishability, referred to as fudging;
•the non-deliberate violation of research norms and
regulations, often due to a lack of understanding of
basic research principles.
 What is
 Plagiarism is a form of academic dishonesty, malpractice, and
Plagiarism?
theft of academic/research property through various sources
of communication or social networking sites.

 As Bosman said in his book, “a person of integrity is honest,

upright and devoid of duplicity, someone who displays
consistency and strength of moral conviction, with a
consequent resistance to acting against an internalized moral
code.”

 Thus, since ancient period, integrity has been a perennial topic

of interest to human society. However, communication
technology has made a big difference in the academic society,
today’s Internet makes it easier not only to commit plagiarism,
 We are living in the network and digital age; it is no longer true
that seeing is believing. Not so long ago, everyone knew that a
photo doesn’t lie.
 Today, image manipulation is not only possible but most
common practice in the literature.
 The editors of academic and research journals now have to
spend a great deal of time dealing with a variety of forms of
authorial misconduct, in particular plagiarism.
 In recent years the term plagiarism has become a high-profile
issue in academic and research society for academic journals;
there have been many articles, books, and seminars discussing
how to stop plagiarism in academic publications which might
be helpful documents for our references in the writing.
 ETYMOLOGY OF PLAGIARISM

 The Oxford English Dictionary defines plagiarism as: “The

practice of taking someone else’s work or ideas and passing
them off as one’s own”;
 It also gives the origin of the word as “Early 17th century:
from Latin plagiarius, ‘kidnapper’ (from plagium, ‘a
kidnapping’, from Greek plagion) ...”.
 The United States Office of Research Integrity Policy (USORI)
states on Plagiarism that: plagiarism includes both the theft or
misappropriation of intellectual property and the substantial
unattributed textual copying of another’s work. It does not
include authorship or credit disputes
 Many universities/ institutions provide clear
guidance for students/researchers and faculty on their
websites about academic standards, including codes of
conduct for authors.
 The guideline available for authors on Oxford University’s
website states: Plagiarism is presenting someone else’s
work or ideas as your own, with or without their consent,
by incorporating it into your work without full
acknowledgment.
 All published and unpublished material, whether in
manuscript, printed or electronic form, is covered under
this definition.
 Plagiarism may be intentional or reckless, or
unintentional. Under the regulations for examinations,
 From the Harvard University’s website, it is clearly
mentioned that: In academic writing, it is considered
plagiarism to draw any idea or any language from
someone else without adequately crediting that source
in your paper.
 It doesn’t matter whether the source is a published
author, another student, a Website without clear
authorship, a Website that sells academic papers, or any
other person:
 Taking credit for anyone else’s work is stealing,
and it is unacceptable in all academic situations,
whether you do it intentionally or by accident.
 In recent years, there have been a large number of
high-profile plagiarism cases, as a result of which the
 Possible reasons for plagiarism by the
 academics
Increased pressure to publish
 Ease of copying and pasting online work
 Difficulties in writing in English or another language
 Misplaced respect for other’s work
 Lack of suitable training
 Lack of awareness of the rules for acknowledgment of other’s
work.
 Difficult to resist the temptation to cheat in order to reach their
goals/targets
 The Internet makes it temptingly easy to cut and paste sections
 Types of Plagiarism
(as per Oxford University’s website)

 Verbatim (word-for-word) quotation without clear

acknowledgment
 Cutting and pasting
 Paraphrasing
 Collusion
 Inaccurate citation
 Failure to acknowledge assistance
 Use of material written by professional agencies or other
persons
 Auto-plagiarism.
 Main sources of
plagiarism
 Secondary source
 Invalid source
 Duplication
 Paraphrasing
 Repetitive research
 Replication
 Misleading
attribution
 Unethical
collaboration
 Verbatim
 Complete
 Types of plagiarism as per guidelines of
(The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers)
IEEE
 Self- (or team) plagiarism without identification and
acknowledgment
 Cutting and pasting of others’ work without identification and
acknowledgment
 Replication of methods sections without clear statement of the
source
 Republication of conference papers with little added value
 Review papers which largely replicate previously published content
 Plagiarism of images/tables/formulae/data without both
acknowledgment and copyright permission
 Plagiarism of ideas
 Wholesale plagiarism of previously published text
 Republication in translation without acknowledgment,
The chief editors advise their journal editors tend to pay
the greatest attention to certain types of plagiarism:
• cut-and-paste,
• duplication of conference proceedings
• self-plagiarism
• team plagiarism,
• review articles containing excessive amounts of quotation
from the cited original papers.
• It makes important that, having studied the cross-check
similarity reports and compared the submitted article with
those with which it has a high similarity index, the editor
should decide what type of plagiarism (if any) he/she is
dealing with, so that the response may be appropriate
 What to Look
• The general for? at large can
public
become aware of accidental
errors, or possibly deliberate
research misconduct, in two
prominent ways.
• Firstly, they can become aware if
they might notice misb
e h a v i o r o f a colleague/co-
 Secondly, they might see something as a third-party
observer, when they are reading a paper/article, reviewing
a manuscript for a journal, or when they are acting as an
editor/reviewer.

 Whether it is before a paper is written, or after it is

submitted to be published, the earlier errors are noticed
and corrected in the better way.

 When criticizing any work at lab meetings, during

manuscript review, or when reading published papers,
there are a number of “red flags” to signal as the sloppy
science or might be a possible misconduct as well.
 Similarity report
• Googlecheck
searches
• Commercial softwares – Tex
Turnitin, iThenticate t

Images:
Pubpeer
https://
pubpeer.com/
 Researchers are advised to have a duty to take action if they
become aware of errors or possible research misconduct so far.
 If they notice a mistake in one of their own publications, they
should write to the journal and ask them to publish a corrected
version of the same to be submitted after incorporation of
suitable corrective measures, or, if the mistake affects the
conclusions of the paper, ask for it to be retracted.
 If a colleague/coauthor is suspected of error or misconduct, the
action to take would depend on the specific circumstances,
such as whether it involves a publication or not, whether he/she
is more senior or junior, and whether the error is thought to be
accidental or deliberate.
 The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), has always been
a great source to advice the journal editors since its
 The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), has always been
a great source to advice the journal editors since its
establishment in 1997.

 COPE has raised the standards of publication integrity, and also

provided b e n e f i t s t h a t h a v e f l o w e d o n t o a u t h
o r s , p u b l i s h e r s a n d institutions/Universities.

 The COPE flowcharts, giving step by step recommendations on

how to handle a variety of misconduct related issues, have
been helpful to countless editors, and have also helped
whistleblowers and authors know what to expect (
http://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts).
Toad--Paul Kammerer, called the next Darwin, unveiled in the
1920's an amazing discovery that the offspring of Midwife Toads
inherited black spots. A closer examination revealed the spots
were, in fact, hand painted with black ink.
Autism Vaccines--Andrew Wakefield published "results" from a
study of 12 children that appeared to link autism with vaccines. In
2011 the British Medical Journal declared the study not a case of
bad science, but of outright fraud.
Obesity -- Eric Poehlman, a researcher with $2.9 million of US
federal grant money, was convicted in 2005 of falsifying data in
various studies on obesity. Having "violated the public trust", he
was sentenced to jail--the first for a US scientist for lying on a
grant application.
 Data Falsification: Popular
• Cases
Teruji Cho (Japan), a researcher of plasma physics, was dismissed from the
University of Tsukuba following his falsification of raw data in a research paper
• Victor Ninov (US), a nuclear chemist formerly at Lawrence Berkeley National
Laboratory, was dismissed from his position after falsifying his work on the
discovery of elements 116 and 118
• Ali Nazari (Iran, Australia), an engineer formerly at t
h e I s l a m i c A z a d University and Swinburne University, was in 2019 fired from
his position at Swinburne due to research misconduct that included falsification and
duplication of results, plagiarism, and manipulation of authorship in published
papers. As of 2021, Nazari has had 61 of his research publications retracted.
• Dipak Das (US), former director of the Cardiovascular Research Center at the
University of Connecticut Health Center, was found in a University investigation to be
guilty of 145 counts of fabrication or falsification of research data. Das has had 20 of
his publications retracted.
 Hwang Woo-Suk (2004-
05) in Science
•2 landmark papers
reporting production of human
embryonic stem cells via Somatic Cell
Nuclear Transfer
• Data fabricated and falsified
•Also obtained human eggs for research
by unethical means, including requiring
Fabrication
female team members to superovulate
Falsification • Suspended prison sentence for
Exploitation embezzlement
Embezzleme
nt
 Porton Down (1940s-60s)
 Series of experiments conducted at
Porton Down, UK Government and
military research centre
 Participants thought they were
volunteering for trials to find things such
as cure for common cold
 Actually exposed to LSD, sarin, mustard
gas, etc 2008, MOD agreed to £3M
veterans
payout to surviving LSD stands for lysergic acid
Consent diethylamide. It is an illegal street
Exploitation drug that comes as a white powder
or clear colorless liquid
 Dick van Velzen (1988-95)
•Senior pathologist at Alder Hey
Children's Hospital
•Expert in cot death, was found
to have organs from about 850
children without appropriate
permission
• Struck off by GMC
•Along with scandal at Bristol
Royal Infirmary led to Human Tissue
Act (2004) Consent
Fabrication
 Piltdown Man
•Report of hominid remains (1912)
found in Sussex
• "Missing link"?
•Later shown to be skull of
modern man and jawbone of
orang-utan
•Fraud certain, but identity of
culprit still uncertain
Charles
Dawson?
Martin Hinton?
BALTIMORE AFFAIR
The searchable database of retracted papers
launched by RetractionWatch shows 982
papers from India have been retracted so far.
O f t h e s e , 3 3 0 h a v e b een r e t r a c t e d
f o r plagiarism and, surprisingly, 118
papers for image duplication and/or
manipulation. The number of papers
retracted for image issues has suddenly
increased since 2016, with 37 papers
retracted in 2018 alone.
Source:CSI
R
Diederik Stapel, a leading Dutch social
psychologist was found to have:

 Fabricated or manipulated information in dozens of

research papers over almost a decade, "several
dozens of publications" in which false information
was used
 14/21 PhD theses Stapel supervised are also
marred
 Many of his students graduated without ever
running an experiment, according to the report.
 Stapel told them that they were better off
 Data fabrication: Classic Case of Bell
Labs

Fired for
Research
 A Whistleblower Case
Example from LA
Times (by Marla
Cone):
Dr. Deborah Rice had studied deca, a chemical compound, from
the public health point of view. Her job as a member of the EPA
panel was to give scientific advice on environmental matters. She
gave an educated warning on the dangers of the chemical
compound, and got insulted and fired for it. This demonstrates
how cruel the world may be for whistleblowers who do unpleasent
discoveries (especially if the consequences of the findings have
negative impact on big business).
 CONCLUSIONS
 Research might also be performed more efficiently
if those who conduct it are fair and honest in
academics and research.
 As a human endeavor, science must be managed
actively for its integrity to be upheld.
 This may require not only a bottom-up, “grass
roots” effort based on principles of honesty and
fairness, it also requires some top-down
mechanisms to ensure compliance.
 There must be mechanisms in place so that
errors and concerns of possible misconduct
 Publishers must try to minimize entry of errors into the
literature by screening manuscripts and using unbiased
peer review and should cooperate with institutions when
problems arise with published work.

 Nations and national scientific academies should be directed

to provide mechanisms to offer advice and oversight for
research institutions.

 Researchers need to have integrity in how do they conduct

themselves, and whether it is through official channels or
anonymously via the web, when they can see errors or have
concerns about possible optimized misconduct, after seeking
careful and meaningful advice, by speaking them up.
Reference